Drugs, TV, and Mental Push-ups

I learned two things last night: One, wear your glasses when you are administering a prescription because a teaspoon of hydrocodone cough syrup, and a tablespoon full of hydrocodone cough syrup are very, very different things. Two, if you have taken a tablespoon rather than a teaspoon, don’t try to stand in the doorway and talk to your husband, because you might fall asleep there.

After a steroid shot, the beginnings of a Zpack, and an overdose of hydrocodone, I am feeling more human than I have in two weeks. Yes, I still have a gross cough, but my throat doesn’t feel like I’ve gargled crushed glass any longer, and my chest doesn’t hurt anymore. Score!

I was flipping through commentary regarding a story about reality TV, and I came across on that asked why shows like Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo do so well, but shows like Arrested Development get canned? Last night, my Father-in-Law was asking why the NFL referees were getting so much press, but not the fact that there is a war on? My answer to both questions is the same: We are a tired nation.

We are a nation full of exhausted people, who generally work (I’m including commuting) between 9 and 11 hour days, who come home and take care of families, houses, or go to second jobs, and who, in what little free time we have, do not want to think about things that would require us to expend more energy. We especially do not want to expend more energy when we feel like the output would be futile. Why spend the emotion and upset on Iraq, the ROI of which will be zilch, when we can make an outcry that will have an outcome due to sponsorship and advertising dollars dictating a need for change? Why indeed. Aren’t we fed the Serenity Prayer from birth these days?

If we demanded more media information about the wars going on, the media would feel the pressure to show it–advertising and sponsorship dollars–and we could begin to affect a change by becoming informed. That would mean watching the news, though, and for the past twenty years we’ve become accustomed to Entertainment News. It is much nicer to sit and look at pretty people, than to see the detritus of small children who have been murdered in drone attacks. It is more fun to take bets on how many hours a Lohan might spend in jail, than it is to think about what it means that our President has won the right to indefinitely detain American citizens who are merely under suspicion of acts, not yet tried or found guilty. Just as it is a lot less taxing to watch Jessica Simpson try to lose weight than it is for us to do a push-up, it is a lot easier to to name Kardashians than the leaders in the Middle East.

We have to find the time, though. We are turning lazy and gluttonous. Our minds are melting. As much as I love lip gloss, I understand what it takes to get it to me. It doesn’t just grow on magic racks at the Ulta store. I understand trade and commerce, and I understand supply and demand, and I think about these things. And I think about the war. And I write my silly little blog articles, and I hope they light a spark in someone stronger and smarter than I, who can light a spark in someone stronger and smarter, who will light a flame, who will start a fire, who will be able to make real headway in helping us to become a thinking nation again.

Maybe it’s still the hydrocodone talking. Maybe not. But I am sad that there are teenagers out there being shot up and blown up and the general public still doesn’t have a straight answer as to why. Instead, we get spoonfed soundbites from a six-year-old hillbilly that are supposed to pass for entertainment.